Ubuntu 12.04 Developers Working to Improve Energy Efficiency

Ubuntu 12.04 — the next longterm-support (LTS) release of the world’s most popular open source operating system — promises a lot of feature updates, including those involving the Unity interface and the Software Center. But if all goes as planned, your Ubuntu 12.04 laptop might last significantly longer on battery power as well. At least, that’s what Ubuntu kernel developer Colin Ian King promised in a recent blog post.

It seems to me that in general, software tweaks aimed at improving battery life are becoming less and less important these days. Power outlets are increasingly standard in places where once they weren’t, and as the cost of high-performance batteries continues to decline many machines are coming standard with batteries that deliver power for well longer than their owners need in most circumstances.